


la transition n'a jamais existé

by wylltpenyddraig



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Artist Grantaire, Café Musain, Canon-Typical Violence, Grantaire-centric, M/M, One Shot, POV Second Person, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 07:22:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21114938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wylltpenyddraig/pseuds/wylltpenyddraig
Summary: Grantaire's life, from his first day in Paris to his last.





	la transition n'a jamais existé

**Author's Note:**

> hello ! 
> 
> i am not a native english speaker and this work is not entirely beta-ed, so there can be a couple of mistakes ahead. enjoy :)

Eleven bridges. You are here and you feel as if this city has something of you. A gamin is running in the streets, barefoot. A young girl is becoming a woman for a couple of sous. This city stinks and you know the taste of misery like the taste of fine wine.

Ten paint brushes. You’re looking at some of them turn in the colouring water. Today, inspiration is escaping you. You lift your eyes and you see your master comment the charcoal draft of one of your classmates. You know that you are next and you tell yourself that you want to forget this day at the cabaret near your quarters.

Nine letters. You chose to let go of your name. It reminds you of your father’s blows and the blood in your mouth. You have always loved your mother’s maiden name; you take it. You make a witty pun out of it to change questions into laughs.

Eight fruits. You are hungry. You take an apple when no one is watching and you bite, consuming the _nature morte_ you are supposed to paint. It has been a while now that your world is shaking on itself and that its colours are fading. Someone slaps your wrist and the apple falls. It is the last time you’ll be allowed in the workshop. Your world takes shades of green, like the lost drop of absinth rolling on the skin of your neck. Humanity becomes hideous. The city's secrets become yours.

Seven streets. It’s seven streets south of the cabaret you favour that you meet your two future best friends. One of them makes you fall. You can only stare at his bald head as he starts immediately to apologize. His bad luck is incredible, he tells you. His companion has a cane and he invites you to a café they know to make up for the inconvenience. As days go by, they fit easily into your life. They will show you that sometimes, humanity may not be so rotten, after all.

Six cockades. You are approached by a young man with a fashionable hat. He asks you if you like the king. You ask him for more information, ready to start a discourse for your own amusement, but he tells you to come to a café for a meeting in a couple of days. In jest, you tell him that you will even bring your friends. Your friends force you to attend the meeting, arm on arm, one on each side. The door opens and you are struck aghast by the sun god leaning on city maps. He plans a rebellion. He plans a revolution. It makes you laugh. He has now six lieutenants and he needs to convince you. You want him to prove you wrong.

Fifth of June. It’s raining. You’re laughing and drinking with your best friends at your favourite cabaret. The cry of one of your friends stops you: the day is here. The people are voting by throwing fourniture in the streets to help the revolutionaries. You have never seen a god fall. You know your hours are counted but you don’t count the empty bottles on the table. The barricades are rising and the city is prepared to cut herself open, to burn. You have known for a long time that you will never see your thirty years pass by.

Four years. It has been four years since you first met him. You still love to debate, to argue : it sets him ablaze and you curl into the burn. The bite of his words comforts you. You don’t know how to do anything with moderation and neither does he. He dazzles, blinds you. Everything he touches seems to drink into his light in an explosion of colours. Even the bottle in your hand cannot dull it, cannot get him out of your mind.

Three days. All you can think about is that three days revolution, two years ago. His lieutenants had become your friends. They had taken to the streets. Three children were shot by the police, you used to give them a sou when you passed them on the street. You had seen your sun god shine brighter than ever before; a true lighthouse in the midst of chaos, of screams, of smoke. You cannot bear the view and your insides are twisted with fear. You don’t want to see him fall. Those three days repeat themselves today.

Two hands. You are not here, the thought of seeing a god fall far too inconceivable. You dream of your bodies tangled in civil rights. The silence wakes you. He is here, head high before a line of soldiers, armed of his red flag. The end is near. You know that you will never let him go anywhere without you. You walk to him. You only have each other now, a cynic and an idealist.

One summer. You almost shared a summer. You can still hear the words, a promise of eternity you both made, the hyacinths under your shoulders tickling your pinked cheeks. You would have wanted to lose yourself in him and keep drinking the honey dripping from his lips. His dreams shattered with the bodies of your friends, scattered on their barricade. The canons’ smoke is lifting, the muskets ready themselves. You will never see your god fall because he turns to you, he slips his hand in yours and he smiles.


End file.
